University of New HampshireUniversity of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository

PLACE Project University Library

6-28-2014

Somewhere There’s a PLACE for Us: LinkingFedora Digital Collections and Open GeoportalEleta ExlineUniversity of New Hampshire - Main Campus

Thelma ThompsonUniversity of New Hampshire - Main Campus

Michael RouthierUniversity of New Hampshire - Main Campus

PLACE Project Group

Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/place

Part of the Cataloging and Metadata Commons, Earth Sciences Commons, GeographicInformation Sciences Commons, and the Scholarly Communication Commons

This Presentation is brought to you for free and open access by the University Library at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in PLACE Project by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information,please contact nicole.hentz@unh.edu.

Recommended CitationExline, Eleta; Thompson, Thelma; Routhier, Michael; and PLACE Project Group, "Somewhere There’s a PLACE for Us: LinkingFedora Digital Collections and Open Geoportal" (2014). PLACE Project. 5.https://scholars.unh.edu/place/5

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Somewhere  There’s  a  PLACE  for  Us:    Linking  Fedora  Digital  Collec@ons  and  Open  Geoportal

Eleta Exline, Thelma Thompson, and Michael Routhier, University of New Hampshire"

Introduction

PLACE, the Position-based Location Archive Coordinate Explorer, will be a geospatial search interface using embedded geospatial coordinates to enable easier discovery of information that can be difficult to locate through text-based searching. Through PLACE, via a click or delineation of a search polygon on a web map, users will zoom to a region and locate all UNH Digital Library collections whose geographic extents intersect. The project will integrate Fedora Commons and Open Geoportal (OGP) open source software to enhance geospatial-ready collections.

Collections The collections chosen for initial implementation represent a variety of New Hampshire materials our of interest to our users: 1.   Topographic maps USGS 15’ maps for NH, c. 1880-1950 2.   Air photos Brown Co. photos of northern NH, c. 1942-1943 3.   Field trip guidebooks from New England Intercollegiate Geological

Conference (NEIGC), c. 1920-1989 4.   Geologic maps from Hitchcock, Atlas accompanying the Geology of New

Hampshire, 1878 5.   Maps of counties and towns from Hurd, Town and city atlas of New

Hampshire, 1892

Universal Gazetteer Search Currently OGP users can search metadata via a geospatial zoom extent search. The gazetteer tool will extend and refine OGP search functionality by allowing users to search the border extent of a polygon, such as a county polygon, for all collections that intersect it. The construction of this tool incorporates creation of a common library of polygons for states, counties, and municipalities/towns to use via a pull down list.

Time Series Collection Capabilities Time series information is very important to assess changes at a location over time. For instance, the USGS topographic quadrangle maps may range four or more dates for the same location, with each map showing different stages of development. A time series cross reference table will establish time series linkages between datasets. A time slider tool will be integrated into the OGP interface to facilitate time series access.

Toolkit Throughout this project we will document our planning processes, assessment methods, any best practices developed, technical and staffing requirements, and recommended resources in order to provide a roadmap for other institutions to make geospatial-ready collections accessible, regardless of platform. This information will be published in the form of an online toolkit, and presented via workshops held in the third year of the project.

Usability Improvements The UNH Library conducts regular usability testing of its web sites and applications. The PLACE interface will be tested at various stages of the project with expert and novice users in mind. Tasks will be chosen based on our personas and interactions with users. The first test of the project was conducted in May 2014 using the Tufts University implementation of OGP.

This  project  was  made  possible  in  part  by  the  Ins7tute  of  Museum  and  Library  Services,  Na7onal  Leadership  Grants  for  Libraries  Program  (Grant  Award  Number:  LG-­‐05-­‐13-­‐0350-­‐13).        

 Search  Interface  Polygon  searching  Zoom  and  pan  Time  slider  

 

   

Repository  Images  

Metadata  Rela7onships  

Ingest  

Indexing   Images  

Data  

Query

Maps  

Audience

For this project we have developed four personas to guide our work: a student, a local citizen, a faculty member, and a non-university professional. For each we have devised a typical information need based on our knowledge of actual library users and initial user survey results, and we have outlined the geospatial products that would help meet that need. Our advisory board includes members of the Fedora and OGP communities, and representatives from primary user groups.

Guidebooks  

Aerial  Photos  

PLACE  will  contribute  open  source  code  to  the  Fedora  Commons  and  Open  Geoportal  communi7es.  

Project  Team:  Thelma  Thompson  (PI),  Eleta  Exline  (Co-­‐PI),  Michael  Routhier  (Co-­‐PI),  Ilya  Atkin,  Betsy  Coleman,  Val  Harper,  Meredith  Ricker,  Sherry  Vellucci,  and  Rob  Wolff.